Heart to Heart
by pandi19
Summary: When Mac needs to talk, he finds an unexpected listener. Set in season 3, post- episode 14, but before the finale. Oneshot.


**Title:** Heart to Heart

**Fandom:** MacGyver (2016)

**Author:** Pandi19

**Rating:** PG-13

**Characters:** Angus MacGyver (and Riley Davis, briefly)

**Disclaimer/Warning:** Anything you recognize is not mine. I just took a stroll through the cemetery.

**Summary:** When Mac needs to talk, he finds an unexpected listener. Set in season 3, post- episode 14, but before the finale.

**Author's Note:** Big thanks to **gaelicspirit** for the speedy beta.

* * *

The overwhelming sense of dread and helplessness that had been chasing him for days eased slightly as he turned down the grassy row.

_Maybe Jack had been right all these years_, thought MacGyver.

He'd never been so thankful for muscle memory as he was now with the thoughts swirling around in his head, his body functioning on autopilot. He stopped directly in front of a gravestone: Jack S. Dalton, Sr..

Mac ran his hand over the smooth marble top of the stone, noticing the coolness.

He breathed deeply, feeling his lungs fill with oxygen until the weight burned his chest. Was it possible to suffocate from emotions?

Exhaling, Mac dropped his hand from the stone and walked to sit against the same large gravestone, he'd sat against so many times with his partner. His former partner? Just Jack?

He frowned.

Mac's stomach was uneasy. This was a terrible idea. What the hell was he doing?

He eased himself down and stretched his legs out in front of him. Beside him sat the six pack of beer he'd brought. He plucked a bottle from the carton and held it in his hands, feeling the cold glass, resisting the urge to fiddle with the label. He twisted the cap off and took a drink, then set the bottle next to him.

Mac closed his eyes and tried breathing normally, only to sigh. He felt the grass beneath his hands, the blades cool to the touch from the shade of the monument. Inhaling again, he blinked his eyes open.

"Hey, Mr. Dalton. It's MacGyver. Mac. I'm, uh, a friend of Jack's. I don't know if you remember me. He's not in town right now. But he always said you were a good listener..." Mac fumbled for words, cringing at the jumbled awkwardness.

He waited a beat. His stomach churned.

God, this was stupid.

"Jack's okay. Or at least, I _think_ he's okay. He said I'd know if he wasn't. I don't actually feel anything, so...he's okay. He's okay. He's okay."

Maybe if he repeated it enough times, Mac would believe it himself.

_But, how could he know for sure?_ It had been weeks with no news. Jack was out there wherever the hell he was with a team of people, Mac didn't know, wasn't sure he could trust, and they were just supposed to accept someone was watching Jack's six?

Mac shook his head as if to guide his thoughts back into place. He had to stop; this wasn't why he had come.

If he were completely honest with himself, Mac wasn't sure why he'd come. The deep weariness that seemed to have settled into his bones was the only reason he didn't pop up right now and walk out of this place. He'd just stay a few minutes and rest.

Mac let his senses take everything in as he tried to get out of his head. The sun. The cool breeze smelling of salt even though the coast was miles away. The birds calling to one another. The firmness of the ground under him. The solid support of the monument at his back.

The sun was warm on his head and shoulders as he leaned back. Mac pulled his legs up, then rested his elbows on his knees and clasped his hands. As a light breeze filtered through the trees, rustling their leaves, he turned his face upward and closed his eyes, soaking up the light.

The world held a calmness that he didn't feel inside. His thoughts were screaming. His brain had declared a "red alert" hours ago, his system in fight or flight and he'd chosen the latter ending up here.

Since Jack's departure, Mac had struggled to find his balance in almost every facet of life. It was as if he'd lost a vital part of his body, a limb. As he fought to find a new normal, the phantom pain a constant reminder.

He'd thought work would be the most challenging. The team had a new dynamic. Jack's choice of Desi for his new overwatch was a kickass addition and Mac found himself surprised at her drive to protect and various ways to get inside his head keeping him from getting lost.

But, she wasn't Jack.

It wasn't fair to compare the two, he knew. The way he knew Jack, though, to the point he could have a one-sided conversation playing himself and answering for Jack, opened a void Mac hadn't anticipated. As much as he ached to help Desi fit into their tight family, he realized their puzzle changed shape to accommodate, a metamorphosis everyone else seemed to adjust to...except him.

His demons lay in wait at home, his sanctuary. The loneliness he knew before Jack reawakened. With Bozer splitting his time between their place and Leanna's, Mac often came home to an empty house.

And alone, his mind spun out.

"Jack said you helped him get through tough times. That you had a lot of answers." His voice was soft, lilting upward slightly in question.

There was an inviting silence as he looked at the white gravestone, uniform to the others, but wholly different where it mattered.

He picked up the bottle and drank deeply, before continuing.

"I have questions that I don't have answers to. A problem I can't solve," he paused and pushed his hand through his hair. The tightness in his gut eased with each breath.

"My dad has cancer."

Putting a voice to those words made it seem real. It _was_ real. There was a weight heavier than the bottle between his hands with the statement.

"I don't, I don't know what to do," he paused, unsure what to say next. "Long story short, our relationship is, was— I don't know – has been…estranged. We were getting back on track, at least that's what I thought; but he's been hiding this from me for a while. Maybe the entire time."

"I just," Mac stopped as emotion swelled in his chest, catching his breath. "I just don't understand why he didn't tell me. He said he didn't want it to damage our relationship. But he's still hiding important stuff and determining how it affects my life."

He took another swig of his beer and stared at the tombstone.

"It's the same old shit. What's Jack say, second verse, same as the first?" Mac cocked an eyebrow as he tried to visualize this as an actual conversation, not one-sided.

"One thing Jack taught me is that family is important," he continued, an edge to his voice.

More accurately, to Jack family was _everything_. After the rocky start to their partnership in the Sandbox where Jack actually counted the down the days he'd be rid of the Wunderkind, something had shifted and Mac had, somehow, become his brother. And that became the _everything_ Mac's life was rebuilt on.

"Jack said you always told him, 'family, don't end with blood.' He took that to heart. His Delta brothers, the team, me: we became his family. And his family has always been mine. But, my father stopped being the important part of my family a long time ago. Letting him in even a little, has been...hard." Mac swallowed around the lump that seemed to be quickly growing in his throat.

That was an understatement. Riley told him he'd been setting his father up to fail, and she was right. As exhausting as it was, Mac had yet to drop his guard completely. James hadn't given him a reason to; the hidden truths kept coming at the most inconvenient moments.

It was like one of the sideways missions he and Jack always ended up on. Except this wasn't a mission. This was his life. It was his dad. And cancer's return to his family.

"My mom died of cancer when I was five. Now I have to watch him die too?" Mac's voice wavered; emotion thick in his throat.

Mac's breath caught, panic inside welling up. He inhaled slowly and counted to four and held his breath, then exhaled on another four-count, willing his body's autonomic responses to kick in. With another round of purposeful breathing, Mac felt his body shift into a more normal rhythm.

"It's just, I did this already. I lost a parent to cancer. I lost my grandad to cancer. I don't want to do this again and I can't figure out a way out. I can't fix it."

He tipped the bottle back, chugging the last of the beer. Mac set the empty down, picked up a new bottle and opened it.

He'd been fighting to keep himself together for weeks. The Friday lunches with his father were doing the opposite intended. The more James MacGyver revealed to Mac, the more Mac dreaded contact. The dichotomy was so strong: yearning to know his father and being frustrated once the curtain had been drawn back to reveal the Wizard. Wondering if the whole cancer thing was a ploy to refocus him and give his father control over him was a frequent thought. Even if he had seen the scans. Lying liars lie, Mac didn't need Jack to tell him that. He needed Jack to dig him out.

"Jack told me about when you guys had been on the outs, but you kept coming back to show him he wasn't alone, no matter what was between you. He's always done that for me. Well, until now. I keep telling myself this is different." Mac sighed, shaking his head.

Jack Sr. didn't reply. Of course, he didn't. Why had Mac come again?

"My dad told me you can fix anything with the right parts. I-I don't think I have the parts to fix this..._chasm_ between us. And if I did, it doesn't change what's going on. It's still possible I just have to watch him die. Without Jack," Mac choked on the words.

Since Oversight was revealed to be his father, he'd been scrambling for purchase in his life. Every anchor he managed to grab hold of was ripped away. His entire _Truman-Showed_ existence, new life with Nasha, then Jack…and possibly his father again; everything turned upside down. The recent blows took more out of him than Mac would admit out-loud. He just felt…abandoned. _Again._

The pain and utter lack of control breached his defenses. This time when Mac felt tears sting his eyes, he couldn't stop them. He hid his face from the tombstone and wiped the wetness from his cheeks quickly, only to feel more tears stream down. His shoulders shook, breaths coming in deep gasps as his sobs came close to hyperventilating. Several minutes passed until Mac carefully compartmentalized his pain back in place.

He returned his gaze to the gravestone and took a steading breath, then continued.

"I know I have everybody else: Bozer, Riley, Matty, even Desi. I guess, I shouldn't be picky. They...they just aren't Jack. You know how he is. Just _persistent_. The others are giving me all this space, because I asked for it, but it's not doing a damn thing. I'm just spinning out. This isn't an equation to solve. Jack would've barreled through my shit."

Mac clasped his hands together and hung his head, chin to chest. The revelation felt heavy, even as he released it. Jack's absence had fractured something within him and he felt as through any wrong move and he'd fall in the abyss.

"I haven't called him, you know. He gave me a number, for emergencies." Mac turned his palm over, gesturing _of course_, Jack had thrown a life raft to his boy. "This would bury his Mac-meter in the red...but I don't want to burden him with this, it would divide his focus. Could get him killed. I can't be the reason he doesn't come back," he pursed his lips together.

Mac wasn't surprised when the tears returned. Jack dying when he wasn't watching his six was a very real fear Mac was living.

"It's not underestimating him. Jack's as badass as they come. The only thing more instinctive than his tactical skills is his heart."

It was true. Jack was intuitive in a way Mac didn't even understand. When Jack liked you, he liked you – no questions asked. And the man could see the good where others couldn't, like with Dawn.

He led with his heart, loyal to a fault. Jack's commitment to his Wookiee life debt to Mac was solid. And for as many times Jack claimed he'd saved his life; Mac knew the person who'd really been saved had been the nineteen-year-old boy in the Sandbox.

"What would Jack say about this? Probably, the only way out is through and no matter what happens, he'll never leave me. Even coming from an undisclosed location, 3000 miles away. His answer wouldn't waiver. Jack said you were always like that." Years of living in each other's pockets provided Mac a solid answer.

The wind picked up around him. The scientific side of his mind knew it was just a gust, but his internal Jack wondered if Senior had just answered. He could almost hear Jack's holler and see his big grin.

Without hesitation, he nodded toward the headstone and said, "Thank you."

As he hand-walked up the monument behind him, Mac felt the alcohol hit him. He swayed slightly, waiting a moment to reach down for the carton. Gaining his sea legs, he shuffled over to Jack Sr.'s stone and ran his hand back over the top, repeating his earlier action. Remembering Jack's parting gesture, he gently knocked his fist at the corner.

"Jack was right. You were the right person to talk to about this."

With that Mac began to make his way out of the cemetery and call an Uber to return to the house. As he reached the end of the row and turned, he saw a familiar person walking toward him. Riley.

"Did you ping my cell?" he asked.

If Riley took offense at the accusation, her face didn't show it. She just smiled and shook her head.

"No, but you weren't answering and Bozer saw you race out of the driveway and got concerned. This was last on Jack's list of places to find you," she shrugged.

Somehow Mac wasn't surprised Jack had made such a list nor that he'd given it to Riley. Even if Jack couldn't watch his six directly, he made sure Mac was covered.


End file.
